


Hope Borrowed

by red2007



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Episode: s09e16 William, F/M, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 10:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23849638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red2007/pseuds/red2007
Summary: Parenthood, even theirs, wasn’t supposed to look like this.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 15
Kudos: 45
Collections: X-Files Angst Fanfic Exchange (2020)





	Hope Borrowed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kyouryokusenshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyouryokusenshi/gifts).



> Written for the XF Angst exchange for Val who asked for a fic about Scully's state of mind leading up to giving up William for adoption and a bonus if I could work in some sort of futuristic hopeful dream. Oh, how I hope I delivered.
> 
> To Nicole and the XF Fanfic Exchange team - you are all magical and we don't deserve any of you.
> 
> I don't own these characters, but if I did...

_The heat is licking at her, suffusing her pores with biting warmth. Each prolonged pass near her skin sends pain radiating through her; nerve endings alive on red-alert, firing across synapses in rapid succession. She runs, tearing through the angry, chaotic spires of burning oxygen. A singular goal sending adrenaline as a counterpoint to the pain and she can only feel one thing. Fear. Panic, unmatched._

_An errant ember finds purchase on her cheek, landing with a deep sting, like the tears she refuses to let fall. She’s searching for something, she came here for a reason; the ache inside her pushing her onward, further into the burning field. All around her the deadly, beautiful dance of the fire and the sounds of it fill her ears—she can almost convince herself its roar sounds like the ocean and for a split second she marvels at the irony._

_What is she doing here, she wonders, grief and utter desperation gripping her heart like a vice, pushing her in and in, into the heart of the raging inferno. Her voice calls out but she can’t hear herself over the cacophony._

_A single sound breaks through the din and she’s halted in her tracks, breath gone from her body. A tiny, tinny whine above the cracking and whirring and destruction. A maternal mix of oxytocin and adrenaline and she’s running again, with abandon while the traitorous tears pool and clog her ducts. She is frantic and though she finds she can hone in on the single cry she can’t tell where it’s coming from. Can’t pinpoint a direction to run in. It’s all around her, swaying with the blaze. It slips along the nerve endings, bounces around inside her cerebellum and she is lost, ambling aimlessly through the burning brush._

_The tears finally fall as the force of her hopeless search crashes into her, but it doesn’t slow, doesn’t cease. The wales of her baby are unrelenting and she imagines his fear, pictures the embers charring his alabaster skin the way they’re burning her, sees him alone and helpless amidst a sea of tantalizing wonder just waiting to snuff his innocent life out._

_She runs, and runs, and runs._

"Dana?"

Scully lifts her hand to her cheek, ghosting her finger over the faint warmth she knows is there. A burn, a scar of the psychosomatic variety. A remnant of a dream that would forever haunt her days and nights on a hair trigger. She lets her eyes adjust to her surroundings as a distant voice pulls her back to present. Using her senses to center her in the moment.

Light and shadows--the early morning sun is peeping in through the curtains soaking the whimsical room in a tone of optimism.

Soft. There's a stack of burp cloths in her hand, faded flannel depictions of Noah's ark with a light blue satin trim and still tied with a matching satin bow. A Maggie Scully original and she wonders fleetingly if personal items are allowed, even if they aren't monogrammed. A fresh stab of guilt, not at her decision, though it abounded. Guilt derived from her mother's loss and uncertainty over her reaction to another woman using them in her stead.

"Dana? How's it coming?"

A voice--her name, but it's distant. Almost like an echo or a ghost. Monica's gentle hand on her shoulder rips her from the fog. She's gotten used to the fog, the nightmares and their faithful midday recall.

She’s been having nightmares for months, some variation on a theme. Reliving her frantic search amidst the burning field, imagining the Gunmen dead while some sinister misguided evil drives off with her son. She’s terrified to go to sleep most nights, afraid she'll relive in dreams the constant hell she's dealing with. Her daily restlessness and fear manifesting in terrifying dreams until she settles herself in the rocking chair in Williams room, her neck and her nerves paying the price for the new nocturnal habit. A few more shots of Toradol to ease the crick and she’s sure she’ll be reported for habitual drug use.

"Just grabbing a few more things," came from her lips, disembodied and monotone. The hand on her shoulder gave a gentle squeeze. Monica was a lot of things but perceptive had to be at the forefront. After studying Scully's face, the hard line of her jaw and the far away glazed over eyes, she nods slightly and without meeting her eyes. Scully was thankful for this simple mercy, her emotions pirouetting on a thin tightrope between numb and brokenness.

"Take your time."

Watching her walk back through the door brings a swell of loss, tangible grief bringing the rest of the room into view. The dresser emptied, the closet door ajar revealing tiny bare pastel blue hangers. In one corner a stack of file boxes that contained her son's earthly possessions.

She wonders often at the paradox her life has become. The confidence she’s always had with the decisions she’s made but the mindful guilt after the consequences meted themselves out. Dana Scully didn’t regret. Joining the FBI, accepting an assignment on the X-Files. Following, befriending, and falling in love with Fox Mulder. Growing their son amidst her utter devastation at Mulder’s disappearance. Making him leave just days after giving birth.

She knows that most of her choices were a result of the natural course of her life, mutual decisions between another party and herself, usually Mulder. Perhaps that’s why this feels so deliberate, why it weighs her down so completely.

She holds the responsibility. No one else. The pressure from her friends and family to choose any other option has sat heavy in the pit of her stomach, frazzling and fraying her nerves. The only influence she wants is impossible to obtain. She can’t ask his opinion, can’t seek his blessing. She can’t even warn him so he can begin to process coming home to nothing. If they both survived this hellish time, Mulder would be expecting to pick their lives up where he left off, with their son.

Parenthood, even theirs, wasn’t supposed to look like this.

Mulder would have stayed over so often to help out with the baby that the topic of moving in would have arisen.

“You practically live here already, Mulder,” she’d say, her head resting on his bare chest, gentle and steady breathing on the baby monitor. He’d get a new partner and she’d continue teaching. There’d be daycare, potty training, little league, family vacations. Retirements, graduations, grandchildren.

It is the nightmare that cuts, more than the gruesome images of her dead lover and the desperate cries from a stolen son. The nightmare that she doesn’t want to wake up from. Where they’re happy and whole and together. Waking, knowing the cold reality where her baby is in constant danger, that she’s parenting alone with no real assurance of Mulder’s safety feels like such cruelty. Waking up from a safe haven to the reality that she is alone and even if Mulder were there she isn’t sure they’d be able to keep William safe. Waking up knowing that she only has one acceptable option and that it will crush her in a way she isn’t certain she can come back from.

 _“I never saw you as a mother before.”_ The words bite at her suddenly, entirely out of context and traitorous.

She wasn’t meant for this and some part of her knew it. Stripped of her reproductive abilities, without her partner, forced to relinquish the miracle child she’d prayed for.

She added the burp cloths to the diaper bag, tracing the embroidered letters on the outside of the bag.

 _“I named him William, for your father.”_ Tomorrow, she wouldn’t even know his name. It was a safety precaution and she understood—she was essentially putting her child in witness protection. Tomorrow William Scully would cease to exist and not even his parents would know his name.

She can’t send the diaper bag.

She breathes through the overwhelming desire to dump it’s contents in the nearest box and hurl the empty cloth bag against the wall. Counts to five and then carries it to the kitchen, depositing the items in a canvas shopping bag.

Walking into the living room she leans the makeshift diaper bag against the suitcase and extends her hands to Susan, the social worker presently holding her baby.

“I know how difficu-,” Susan starts as she hands William over and Scully gives her a curt nod.

“I just need a few minutes,” Scully calls, walking away from Susan and Monica, bouncing the baby gently, her chin resting lightly along the slope of his forehead. He’s grown so much over the last year but she knows that her muscles won’t forget the shape of him in this moment for the rest of her life. A week from now she’ll feel a ghost of a pressure along her chin and remember the small tickle of his still growing hairs. She sweeps him away into her bedroom—the last place they’d all been together as a family.

_“When I get back I’ll have to help baby-proof the apartment,” Mulder had whispered, leaning over the bassinet, his hand resting at the crest of the tiny baby’s head. “Your mom and I will take you to the zoo at the Smithsonian and you can see the pandas.” Fast asleep, the baby’s lips began to suckle and a reflex sent one of his balled up fists toward Mulder’s wrist. His fingers opened and splayed across the pulse point._

Replaying the scene in her mind's eye she acknowledges that her family trip to take Matthew to the zoo two years prior had been her last.

“You’re not going to remember this,” she whispers to his porcelain skin. “That should probably make this easier somehow. You won’t know what you’ve been through. You won’t remember me—” her breath catches and she swallows, hard. “I didn’t know I wanted you until I was certain I couldn’t have you. You saved my life during my darkest days.” A smooth pudgy hand glides down her face and lands on her neck. Her pulse point. “You saved my life and gave me the hope I’d been searching for.” Tears sit at the ready in the corners of her eyes and she presses her lips to his hair, breathing in as deeply as her clenched chest will allow. “It’s my turn to return the favor.” A single tear escaps, landing on his head while she smoothes her fingers over his on her neck. “I’m saving you.”

>< ><

“Do you want some company?” Monica’s words come out just slightly higher than a whisper. She’d helped Susan carry William’s things out to the van, ordered Chinese that sat barely touched on the coffee table. She’d made tea, offered wine and whiskey, cleaned up and stored the leftovers. “I can make up the couch.”

Scully had sat in a haze for hours. She had disjointed memories of Monica flitting around her, vaguely remembered picking at something with rice—she couldn’t have felt hunger even if she was. Her head feels like she is seeing life through a nimbostratus. Shadows and ominous darkness. She knows in some patch of her brain that she has been poor company but it only adds to the pervading sea of guilt and shame she is awash in.

“I’m fine.” Her anthem. She nods to the bedroom. “I’m just going to sleep.” Monica hesitates, slipping her hand over Scully’s, gripping her fingers, grounding her. The sudden contact brings Scully’s eyes to Monicas and her glazed over look softens for a tiny moment. She takes the infusion of support and breathes deep. “I will be fine,” she promises. Neither of them believe it, but Monica smiles. “I did the right thing.” Neither of them believe that either.

“I’ll check on you tomorrow,” Monica squeezes the other woman’s hands once more and reaches for the nearly empty rocks glass on the table.

“Don’t.” Scully puts a hand out to stop her, downing the last finger of Jameson at once. She doesn’t want to go to sleep; fears the effects of the day's events on her subconscious. “Thank you for today,” she offers sincerely, rising from her place.

She watches Monica grab her jacket and keys, offer another sympathetic, reassuring smile and pull the door closed behind her. Flipping off the lights and following the familiar path back to her room she pauses just inside the door. A blue blanket emblazoned with _‘William’_ is draped over one corner of the bed, bathed in streaks of moonlight.

 _“You saved me,”_ she’d said and he had. Finding something to live for when she was certain she’d lost Mulder had been a boon. She can tell herself she was saving him, she had to tell herself she was saving him. Standing in her apartment childless, alone--she knows she may have sacrificed what was left of herself.

Fully clothed, she pulls the baby’s blanket to her chest, curls up atop the covers, closes her eyes, and welcomes whatever punishment her nightmares see fit to bestow on her.

>< ><

_Jackson. But that can’t be right. She can see Mulder in his nose. The hazel flecks in his eyes. It’s William, she knows it must be. A tall, lanky boy—no that’s not right either. He’s a man, young. Sixteen? He sits in a chair in an unfamiliar room. Brick and wood, greens and tans. She can see hints of Mulder all over, baby toys littered amidst the clutter of files._

_She can feel elation and relief at his presence, a pervading sense of caution and she knows this isn’t a typical nightmare. She doesn’t_ know _this William. She has no sense of who he is, as though this is their first time meeting since she handed him off to the social worker._

_“Putrid smell eliminated,” Mulder exclaimed, entering from a room off the side near the door. He carried a baby that she knew instinctively she’d carried, with a tuft of auburn hair, deep blue eyes, and a plastic Easter egg in her hands._

_The scene was cozy, in spite of the discomfort and uncertainty. She didn’t know what to say to Wi—Jackson. She didn’t know the right way to move forward but she knew, dream or not, that she_ could _._

_His presence had given her back the hope she’d lent him._

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely adored this prompt, thank you Val. And I was able to tie in a little of the bonus to the story I got to write for her for the Easter exchange last year, Coming Home.


End file.
